


We Can't Return

by aeternamente



Series: Carousel of Time [2]
Category: Lizzie Bennet Diaries
Genre: Conversations, Friendship, Gen, New York, Siblings, Travel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-31
Updated: 2013-04-02
Packaged: 2017-12-07 01:04:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/742295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aeternamente/pseuds/aeternamente
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sequel to <a href="606855/chapters/1093806">Circle Game</a></p><p>A series of scenes of reevaluation and renewal.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Carpooling

**Author's Note:**

> It started with a one-shot fic about miscommunications between Bing and Jane. Then it became a four-part series in which more characters were involved in the miscommunications that led to Bing and Jane's break-up. Now, I'm picking up this line of narrative again to write another four-part series that is kind of a mirroring redemption of the events of the first one.
> 
> The first four-part series, [Circle Game](606855/chapters/1093806), was written pre-Pemberley, but even so, it is only mildly canonballed. I got the "indiscretion" wrong, but I like my version better than the show’s, tbh. But I’ll be vague enough in my references to it that it could be either. I made a passing mention of Pemberley as a house rather than a company in one of the scenes, but we’ll just pretend that didn’t happen. I also found out in a hangout w/ Bernie that Caroline is supposed to be younger than Bing, whereas I made her older, but that’s not really canon, so I’m gonna ignore it. (Caroline just makes more sense to me as an older sister.)

The elevator ride down to the ground floor of Hearst Tower was a long one, so Darcy took out his phone and caught up on recent texts from Lizzie (who had taken to texting him several times a day whenever she needed a break from working on her thesis).

_Writing about hyper-mediation. Makes me think about how sexy you look in a bow tie. ;)_

_I’m glad you’ll be coming back to San Francisco soon._

_Is it weird that I miss you more when you’re across the country?_

_It’s not like it makes a difference, when I don’t get to see you either way._

Darcy directed a sad smile at the screen of his phone and typed a response:  _Not weird at all. I miss you too, and I will be glad to return home._

Then another:  _Remind me to wear a bow tie for our next video chat._  (He couldn’t quite bring himself to return the winky face.)

The elevator doors opened and Darcy looked around the lobby for Bing, who was going to take him to the airport.

Instead, Jane was there, smiling and waving at him. “Hi, Darcy,” she greeted as he approached. “It’s so good to see you!”

“Where’s Bing?” Darcy asked. He felt the rudeness of his words the moment they escaped his mouth, but Jane Bennet’s sudden and unexpected presence made him feel more than a little wary. She was smiling and she had greeted him warmly, but (recalling Charlotte’s observation from one of Lizzie’s early videos) she would have issued the same greeting had Darcy been her closest friend, her mortal enemy, or the mailman. Darcy was not a lifelong scholar of the Many Moods of Jane Bennet (or particularly adept at reading facial expressions in general), and since his past actions had caused her considerable pain, he knew she could not be blamed for hating him.

But she was still smiling. “Bing is working on an rooftop gardening project,” she explained, “and it went later than he expected, so I’m here instead!” She grinned at him and made a little  _ta-da_  motion with her hands. Then she looped her arm through his, directing him toward the door where Bing’s driver was waiting. “And anyway, I haven’t gotten a chance to see you before now, and that didn’t seem right.”

Darcy was silent. At lunch the other day, Bing had brought up the possibility of planning an outing with the three of them (including Jane), but Darcy’s pronounced discomfort at the idea had made him back down. The truth was that Darcy had no idea what to say to Jane, how to face his past mistakes, and he had spent so much time struggling with his inner demons lately, he was ready to take a rest from it and just let the remaining demons be sit comfortably for a while.

But judging by the steely look Jane gave him when they were seated in the car, this was not likely to happen.

“Darcy, have you been avoiding me?” she asked bluntly.

“I—I don’t—” He was struggling to find the right words, but they weren’t coming to him.

“I was really looking forward to seeing you,” she said, her expressive eyes mirroring the disappointment in her voice, “so I could tell you how happy I am for you and Lizzie, and thank you for what you did for Lydia, and then Bing said you wouldn’t be available, that you were really busy, but he looked like he was hiding something, and just now, when you saw that I was here instead of Bing, you made your awkward turtle face.”

“My what?”

“You know…” She affected a pronounced frown and drew her chin back into her neck. “I’m William Darcy, and I’m an awkward turtle,” she said in the low voice he recognized as her impression of him. She broke character and sighed. “Look, if you’re mad at me because Bing dropped out of school, I wish you would just tell me. I can handle it, I’ve heard it enough from his family—”

“Jane, that’s not—” Darcy sputtered, horrified to hear that Jane thought he was angry with her—it could not be further from the truth. “I’m not mad. I respect Bing’s choices, and I can see that he’s happy here, with you and with the life he’s building for himself. And even if I did disapprove of his choices, I would not blame you—you have done nothing wrong.”

“Well, I’m glad you feel that way.” Jane gave a small smile, but her wide eyes were still intent upon his, searching, questioning. “But I still don’t understand why you were avoiding me.”

Darcy looked down at his hands. “I did not think you would want to see me, given all of the things I have assumed about you, all of the things I have done that have caused you pain. You have every right—”

Jane placed a hand over his, and that was enough to silence him. Her hand was very small, like Lizzie’s. He missed Lizzie’s hands. “That’s all in the past, Darcy,” Jane said firmly. “Right now, we have every reason to be very good friends, and no reason to avoid one another except for the stupid ones we made up in our heads. So let’s forget about those, okay?”

Darcy nodded, but he still felt he needed to apologize. “I am sorry for the role I played in convincing Bing to leave you. I was wrong. You’re—you’re good for him,” he said.

Jane smiled. “I forgive you. Friends?” She held up her hand for him to shake.

Darcy shook her hand. “Friends,” he agreed.

At that moment, his phone buzzed in his pocket, probably with another text from Lizzie. He fished it out of his pocket, and was pleased to find that he was right.

_You’d better wear a bow tie…_  Lizzie wrote,  _and nothing else._

Darcy was sure that Jane could see him going red in the face, and when she said, “Oh, is that Lizzie? Tell her hi from me!” he thought he could detect a note of teasing in her voice.

Well, if Darcy was going to be subjected to embarrassment, he could at least make sure he wasn’t the only one.

_I will take that under consideration,_  he replied to Lizzie.  _By the way, your sister (who is sitting next to me at the moment) sends her greetings._


	2. Consolation

Caroline scanned the coffee shop for the familiar, tall form of William Darcy, and when she found him, she gave him a small wave as she reached the end of the line to order.

He waved back. It was a gesture that, just a month ago, would have seemed unnatural coming from him—she was used to a stiff nod, the most distant kind of acknowledgement that can still be considered polite. But he waved now, and he even smiled a little.

This warmer, brighter Darcy would take some getting used to, particularly considering the fact that the changes in his behavior and mannerisms would always remind her of the reason for these changes: his new relationship with Lizzie Bennet.

It wasn’t that Caroline was jealous—okay, it was partly because she was jealous—but mostly, it was that she had a deep and enduring mistrust of the power Lizzie Bennet had over Darcy. She had seen him break because of it, and she wasn’t entirely convinced that Lizzie wouldn’t break him again.

Love, as Caroline had learned the hard way, was a powerful emotion. Powerful enough that, if you didn’t know any better, it could convince you to describe it as “true,” and to capitalize it in your mind when you thought of it: “True Love.” Attractive, alluring, impossible.

The true irony was that, in trying to sidestep the power of love by pursuing a safe, stable, relatively emotionless relationship, she had been trapped by it again—she came to understand how much she loved him when all love must be in vain.

She reached the counter and ordered their darkest roast coffee along with a double dark chocolate brownie. There was no getting around the fact that the next hour or so was going to be excruciating, so she needed her comfort food. Armed with her bittersweet indulgences, she made her way toward the small table where Darcy was sitting.

He was reading a text on his phone, and the soft smile on his face gave Caroline a good idea of the identity of the sender. He sat a moment in thought, then typed out a reply, sending it with a smirk. He set his phone aside and looked up just as Caroline sat down in the seat across from him.

“So you’re the latest in the ‘cheer up Caroline’ parade,” she said. “What makes you think you’ll be any more successful than anyone else?”

“I don’t intend to try to cheer you up,” Darcy replied. “I certainly know as well as you do how annoying that can be. I’ve been on the receiving end of plenty of cheering up over the past several months from Bing and Fitz and Gigi. They meant well, of course…”

“…but sometimes you’d rather mope in peace,” Caroline finished. She had practiced enough to be quite good at finishing his sentences, and she did it now out of habit. “So you don’t want to cheer me up. Why are you here, then?”

“I had business here in Los Angeles,” he said with a shrug, “and you’re my friend and I haven’t seen you in a while.”

“Since Christmas.”

“Yes.” Darcy looked down as he spoke, and Caroline could tell from the way he frowned and pursed his lips that he was remembering the same thing she was—that moment they’d had alone when Caroline had, in desperation, kissed him and he had, in equal desperation, allowed himself to respond. It was a bleak, restless, bitter kiss, but as a connaisseur of dark coffee and dark chocolate, Caroline knew how to appreciate bitterness.

But it had ended in nothing—he had pulled away and stepped back, apologized and held on to his hopeless love for Lizzie Bennet (which turned out not to be so hopeless after all).

Caroline ate a generous forkful of her brownie and tried to push back at the memory. She chewed slowly and tried to focus on the flavor—rich, deep, biting—and swallowed. “I don’t know why you bother pretending you still think of me as a friend,” she said at last.

“You  _are_  my friend,” Darcy insisted.

“After everything I’ve done?” Caroline asked incredulously. “You should all hate me.”

“Do you want us to hate you?”

“Yes!” she all but shouted. “That would at least be easier to take. All of this… sympathy and niceness, it makes no sense. It’s difficult for me to believe it’s genuine. I did my best to destroy your chances with someone who makes you happy. Are you seriously telling me you’re not angry about that?”

Darcy blinked, then stared thoughtfully into his coffee for a few moments. He often stared at his hands or whatever was in his hands while trying to figure out how to articulate something important. “Lizzie Bennet hasn’t always made me happy,” Darcy pointed out. “One could argue that, prior to the last few weeks, she has caused me nothing but misery. I don’t blame you for trying to separate me from that.”

“How do you know she won’t hurt you again?” Caroline blurted out.

His jaw tightened. “I don’t,” he said honestly. “But I do believe her feelings are sincere, and that she does not mean to hurt me again, and for the time being, that is enough for me.”

Caroline took a sip of her coffee and held it on her tongue. She did not want to ask the next question, but she knew it would fester inside her if she didn’t. She swallowed. “She really loves you, then?”

A slow smile spread across Darcy’s face. His eyes glowed with a soft warmth. “Yes,” he said. “She really does.”

That was it, then. He was so beautiful in love, so adorably astounded by his own good fortune, that she couldn’t begrudge him his happiness.

They passed the rest of the time in small talk. And when they stood to leave, she took a long look at him, his steady blue eyes, the stark, solid planes of his face, the place at the top of his forehead where his hair tended to stick straight up. And when she said goodbye, she knew it would not be goodbye forever, but it would be goodbye for a good long while.

And when she had turned away from him, walking out the door and down the crowded street without once looking back, she mused that it was fortunate that she could appreciate bitterness, because her future was sure to hold a considerable amount of it.


End file.
